Holiday Season Kick Off: Craft and Pie Review

I love November 1st. For me it marks the start of the holiday season. Our family celebrated the day crafting with Elmer's and X -Acto products while baking Wholly Wholesome Pies. The house smells wonderful and the decorations are perfect! Its hard to decide if Thanksgiving or Christmas is my favorite holiday but Christmas is more fun to decorate for.
This year I was given the opportunity to review a copy of A Homemade Christmas: Creative Ideas for an Earth-Friendly, Frugal, Festive Holiday by Tina Barseghian. Available now from Harlequin Nonfiction;  $14.95 US/$17.95 CAN. Right now you can find it online at Barnes and Noble here.
The book is full of fun and frugal ways to decorate for the holidays with an emphasis on recycling and being green. The first project from the book I attempted to do was the Recycle Cards from Christmases Past. I had so much fun sorting all my old cards and deciding which cards to use. I never throw out Christmas cards I am sent so this was a perfect project for me.

After selecting my project and gathering the cards, ribbon and my Elmer's and X-Acto products I preheated the oven for my pies. To me the smell of the holidays comes from Pumpkin and Apple pie! I was given the chance to review Wholly Wholesome products so I selected Pumpkin and Apple Pie just for my November 1st Craft day! I knew the pies would be perfect for this day.

For me the best pie was the pumpkin and my hubby loved the apple. Not surprising though since those are both are favorite flavor of pie. The great thing about Wholly Wholesome is the ingredients they use, you can definitely taste the quality in their products. Their products contain no Artificial Flavors, Colors, Preservatives or Additives, Hydrogenated Fats, Oils or Trans Fatty Acids. They also make pie shells, pie crusts, cookies, breads and cakes. I was very tempted by their cheesecakes bites, but opted for pie for my craft day. The cheesecake will definitely be on my list of must haves for holiday treats, I cannot wait to try them. You can find Wholly Wholesome products at most Whole Foods markets and be sure to look in the freezer or baked goods section of your store to see all their products. You can find more about Wholly Wholesome by visiting their Twitter or Facebook pages.

After eating the amazing pie I was full of energy to complete my craft project. First I cut out some fun borders on a few of the cards using the X-Acto scissors. I felt this gave a nice touch to the cards and made each of them unique.  Then I placed the cards on the ribbon to see how I wanted the finished project to look. I have to admit when I was measuring my ribbon I was not paying full attention to what I was doing ( my little guy was in his feeding chair throwing Gerber puffs across the room ) and I cut the ribbon in the wrong spot! I wanted to use only the stuff I already had from last year so instead of going out to by more ribbon I improvised and the garland changed to a hanging ribbon of cards! I used my Elmer's Glue to adhere the ribbon to the back of my cards and pieces of old felt paper to hold it onto the cards more securely. I felt great reusing old Christmas stuff to make new Christmas stuff. There are a few more projects like the homemade snow globes I would love to try this year.

The finish project turned out great! I had a blast on my November 1st Craft day! Pies, crafting and the holidays all fit so well together. I would have to say it was the best kick off for the holidays I could have asked for! 

If you would like more info about Elmer's Crafting supplies you can follow them on Twitter and Facebook. They also have on their Crafting Community site a sweepstakes to win 2 $500 Walmart cards and a gift pack from  Elmer's and X-Acto. You can enter here.

** For this post I received two free product coupons from Wholly Wholesome, one free copy of A Homemade Christmas: Creative Ideas for an Earth-Friendly, Frugal, Festive Holiday to review and as a Bzz Agent I received a Elmer's and X-Acto sample pack to review. These are my own opinions and not influenced in any way by the products I received.

Coming Soon: CSN STORES Review

As Halloween grows closer I get excited about the upcoming holidays! I love to shop online and find great deals. There could not be an easier way to shop online for everyone in your family than from CSN Stores. They have over 200 stores that you can shop online for all your gift giving needs. This year I know many people need briefcases.
Often times my husband and I find ourselves in need of briefcases to carry our laptops in when we are at Starbucks, College or the local Library. I try to stuff it into my diaper bag but it never fits. CSN Stores has a variety of Men and Woman briefcases in leather, fabric and hard sided. A few of my favorite briefcases are:

Men's Goodhope Bags Bellino Reporter Briefcase for $113.99

Women's McKlein USA Geneva Italian Leather Briefcase for $119.99 in Red, Green, Pink, Orange, Black and many other colors.
I liked the Orange one!

Check out all the other stylish and great products like the baby gear, cooking supplies, home decor, and so much more at CSN Stores here.

Come back soon to see what item I will review from CSN Stores for my 1st Birthday Bash 10 days of giveaways.

UPS Store Rebate for Everyday Foods Magazine

I know with the holidays coming many of us are busy shipping items to family and friends and if you use The UPS Store there is a offer for a FREE subscription to Whole Living Magazine or Everyday Foods. Send in your receipt or combination of receipts from the UPS Store of $25 or more to:
P.O. Box 60015
Tampa, FL 33660-0015

Include a notecard with your Full name, address, daytime phone number and the magazine you want. Use code EFAEJD1 for Everyday Foods and BDAA015 for Whole Living.

*Offer expires November 30, 2010

You might want to also check out the sweepstakes from these magazines here. 

New Sweepstakes to Enter

I have found a few good Sweepstakes to enter that I wanted to share with everyone. I try to enter a few sweeps every week, I might not win but I know I win never win if I dont enter. Good Luck to everyone, let me know if you win I get excited when my readers win too!

Stonyfield Organic is sponsoring a sweeps to Meet Rachael Ray and Dine Out in New York City.You can enter here.

The sweeps winner will win the chance to meet Rachael Ray in person and receive:  -an all-expense-paid, four-day trip for two to New York City
-dinner for two at Savoy and Blue Hill restaurant
-two tickets to the Rachael Ray show
-Rachael Ray's Book of 10
-an autographed Stonyfield Yogurt Cookbook
-a tour of Rachael's magazine test kitchen

The sweepstakes will end November 30, 2010.  

Party Lite is having a Lite Up Your Holidays Instant Win and Sweepstakes. You play everyday for a chance to win a $50 Party Lite Gift Certificate (5 awarded daily) and be entered to win the Grand Prize of a $10,000 room makeover by Party Lite. You can enter here.
The Promotion begins on October 1, 2010 at 12:00 a.m. Eastern Time ("ET") and ends on November 30, 2010.
How to Enter: You will need a code ("Code") to participate in the Promotion. There are two (2) ways to obtain a code:
a. From a Consultant: During the Promotion Period, speak with a Partylite consultant to receive a Code.
b. Alternate Method: If you are unable to speak with a Partylite consultant, use DN4FJC as your Code.

Mega Bloks is having a sweepstakes to win 1 out of 25  Mega Bloks Gift Packs in honor of their 25th Anniversary. You can enter here.
Specially marked bags of Mega Bloks in stores have a card inside for a chance to win $25,000. if you buy this brand for kids be on the look out for game pieces.
Contest begins on October 1, 2010 and ends on November 30, 2010, or when all game
piece supplies have been exhausted, whichever occurs first.

Do you use Frontier and Simply Organic products? If you do The Spice Is Right contest for you. The two companies have teamed up to give a spice pantry prize. The grand prize winner will receive a complete set of over 50 unique organic spices and seasonings.

All you need to do to enter is submit a photo of yourself using any Frontier or Simply Organic product. Feel free to be creative with your submissions! Additionally, a ten item sampler set will be awarded to two entrants. You can enter here.
This contest period is from October 14, 2010 at 12:00:01 a.m. and November 15, 2010 at 11:59:59 p.m.

Pretty Little Studio's 1 Year Anniversary Sale Oct 14-16

Pretty Little Studio is having a 1 Year Anniversary Sale on Oct 14-16. I really like this company they have great products and excellent customer service. So many of their items make great stocking stuffers.
For the Anniversary Sale they are offering 3 great coupon codes.

Receive 20% off your entire purchase
Coupon Code: sale20

OR

Receive $5.00 off a $25 purchase
Coupon Code: oneyear
(limit one per person)

OR

Receive free shipping off your order
Coupon Code: freeship

Pretty Little Studio is a really cute site that sells all sorts of paper products including  flash cards, calendars, paper dolls, vintage cutouts, tags and labels, buntings, jar labels, note cards and more! They have great Christmas items on their site. One great thing is they take paypal, very helpful when you want to use money earned from taking online surveys. I purchased a set of Vintage Baby Flashcards that I love, I blogged about it here.  Using the money I made from taking online surveys these were practically free to me, with the exception of it costing my time :)  More links and info on great survey companies coming soon.
Their flash cards are printed on archival safe card stock with archival safe ink. Water proof, Smudge proof, and Fade resistant. Printed in the U.S.A. I recommend this set of flash cards for $5.79 here.